Tellendar vs Google Calendar: which one do you need?

Updated October 8, 2026

The two can be used together. Google Calendar is a full calendar: shared, with guests, on every device you own. Tellendar is an iPhone app that takes an appointment in one sentence and makes it ring like an alarm clock. The two connect: you keep Google Calendar, and Tellendar adds the alarms.

What Google Calendar does, and Tellendar doesn't

Google Calendar is built for planning with other people. According to Google's help, you can:

• Invite people to an event by email, even if they don't use Google Calendar, and see who is coming.
• Share a whole calendar, choosing what each person can see or change.
• Assign tasks, create several calendars, add a location and a description to every event.
• Use it everywhere: on iPhone, on Android, in a browser on your computer, and even offline.

Tellendar does none of this. The app runs on one iPhone at a time, on iOS 26 or later. An event has a title, a date, a duration, a repeat rule and alarms: no location, no notes, no guests, no sharing. And Tellendar is a paid subscription, while Google Calendar comes with a Google account.

If you set up meetings, if your family or your team shares a calendar, or if you check your schedule on a computer, Google Calendar remains the right tool for that.

What Tellendar does, and Google Calendar doesn't

Google Calendar warns you with notifications. On iPhone, a notification plays a sound once, shows a banner, then settles in Notification Center. In silent mode, the phone only vibrates. A Focus can hold it back. The guide Why you miss calendar alerts on iPhone goes through these cases.

Tellendar only warns you with alarms. They are real iOS alarms, like the ones in the Clock app:

• They ring until you stop them, even in silent mode and with Do Not Disturb on, on the Lock Screen, with the name of your appointment.
• You can set several on the same appointment: the evening before, then an hour before.
• When an alarm rings, a "Snooze 10 min" button makes it ring again later.
• You pick the sound in the settings: the iOS one, or one of the app's seven.

The other difference is how you enter things. Tellendar has no form: you type or dictate a sentence, "Dentist Thursday at 3pm, alarm 1h before", and the app creates the event and the alarm. A Lock Screen widget starts dictation without unlocking the phone. Repeats are said in plain English, "every other Thursday" or "the first Monday of the month".

Both together

Tellendar connects to Google Calendar. In its settings, open Google Calendar, tap "Connect Google Calendar", then tick the calendars to show and the one your new events go to. From there:

• Your Google events show up in Tellendar, with a dot in their calendar's color. They arrive without an alarm: Tellendar doesn't read the notifications set in Google, and never adds an alarm you didn't ask for.
• You add an alarm to a Google event in one sentence, "add an alarm an hour before the team meeting", or from its detail sheet. The alarm follows the event if you move it in Google, on your computer or on your phone.
• What you create, move or delete in Tellendar goes to Google Calendar. An event created in Tellendar lands in Google without its default notifications, so you aren't warned twice.
• Tellendar writes no reminder in Google. Your alarms stay on your iPhone.

The location, description and guests of a Google event don't show in Tellendar, but they are left alone: when you change an event in Tellendar, only its title, date and repeat rule change in Google. To invite someone or add an address, use the Google Calendar app.

Your iPhone talks to Google directly. Tellendar's server sees neither the titles nor the details of your events. The Privacy page says exactly what it keeps. For the steps in detail, read A real alarm for your Google Calendar events.

Which one to pick

• You share your calendar, invite people, work on a computer. Keep Google Calendar. Add Tellendar if you miss appointments on your iPhone: it adds alarms to your Google events, without changing anything in Google Calendar.
• You mostly note your own appointments, on your iPhone. Tellendar on its own is enough. Your events are backed up to iCloud and come back on a new phone.
• You want a free calendar, with no alarm. Google Calendar, or Apple's Calendar app. The guide How to make your iPhone ring for an appointment, even in silent mode shows what the iPhone can do without an app.

Frequently asked questions